This invention relates to bulk material conveyors and more particularly to a rope assembly for a mechanical bulk material conveyor. The invention further provides for a disc assembly for such a rope assembly and a ferrule used in such disc assembly configured to facilitate the severing of such rope assembly in splicing sections of the rope.
Mechanical bulk material conveyors are well known in the prior art and are used for mechanically conveying various types of bulk materials such as grains, powders, pellets, chips, flakes and the like. Generally, they consist of a lower housing assembly usually provided with a material feeding means, an upper housing assembly usually having a material discharge means, a pair of tubular members interconnecting the housing assemblies to provide a circuitous path through the apparatus, and a rope assembly provided with a plurality of spaced flights of discs, disposed along the circuitous path of the apparatus. The rope assembly is adapted to be driven at high speeds so that the flights of discs function to displace volumes of both air and bulk material fed into the lower assembly. The displacement of the air along with the material being conveyed has the effect of fluidizing the material being conveyed which not only facilitates the material displacement but provides for a smooth and efficient conveying process. An example of such a conveyor is illustrated and described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,186,312.
In the type of conveyor described, there further is provided at least a pair of sprockets disposed in the housing assemblies about which the endless rope assembly is trained. Typically, such sprockets are provided with circumferentially spaced recesses which are adapted to receive the spaced flights of the rope assembly as the rope passes about each sprocket. The rope assembly typically consists of an endless rope provided with a plurality of ferrules spaced along and firmly secured to the rope, with each of such ferrules being provided with a pair of disc and boss members engaging outwardly facing surfaces of the ferrule and secured together.
In the use of the type of rope assemblies described, one mode of failure experienced when using a simple cylindrically configured ferrule has been the pulling through of the ferrule out of the end of a disc assembly typically formed of a plastic material, attributable to the application of a large force on a small cross-sectional area. To remedy such problem, such ferrules have been redesigned to provide an annular flange and correspondingly or greater cross-sectional area. While eliminating the problem of the ferrule being pulled out of its associated disc assembly, the use of such a flanged configuration has resulted in a new problem when the rope of the assembly is required to be spliced to replace a failed section of the rope.
Splicing of a rope in such assemblies requires severing through the rope at one of its attached ferrules, at a right angle through the ferrule and rope, at the ferrule""s midpoint where the narrow annular flange normally is positioned. Because of the narrow width of the annular flanged section of the ferrule, it is difficult to accurately cut through the center of the flange section using simple hand tools without a guide fixture to insure an accurate cut at the midpoint of the annular flange and at a precise right angle to the rope axis required for the splicing operation.
In view of the foregoing, it is the principal object of the present invention to provide a rope assembly for a mechanical bulk material conveyor of the type described which not only provides for preventing the ferrule of a disc assembly from pulling through the associated disc members of such assembly upon the application of a severe force but further provides for such an assembly which may be easily and precisely cut through at a midpoint thereof in the removal of failed section of such rope assembly and the splicing of a new section therein.